In the Beginning
by Invincable Ragdoll
Summary: In the Beginning, Lydia wasn't what you see now... Cartoonverse, so get over it. Re-edit of the whole story, so re-read it!
1. Chapter the First

HEY ALL YOU LOSERS. Long time no talk. I've updated the WHOLE STORY, meaning things have been added where things seemed needed. So read the whole thing again, or a Sandworm will getcha.

* * *

She closed the curtains to the huge windows in her room, then lit the candle in the lantern located in the middle of her dark room. That lantern had been her mother's. What she didn't know, up until recently, was that there was a note taped inside of it inscribed with the chant.

She took a deep breath, as if all of her hopes and dreams were going to come floating loose with the next thing she was about to say.

_"Though I know I should be wary...  
still I venture some place scary. Ghostly hauntings I turn loose...  
Beetlejuice... Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice!"_

As many times as she had tried to have said it, nothing had ever happened. Or, at least, not to her benefit. Every time that something she hoped so greatly for failed her, she sank deeper into the never-awakening nightmare that she had buried herself within.

What she didn't know was that He was there every single time she called His name that night. She didn't know that He loved the feeling of being sucked back to the living world, to breathe in the scent of a young girl's very flesh. For him to show his face, however, he needed to evaluate if help is needed, deserved, and available.

Of course he was available, he was quite eligible bachelor, but what surprised Him was how quickly He realized that she was deserving.

As she climbed into her gothic bed sheets, he watched her from the dusty mirror. He noticed that she had a blank, almost painful look about her. He could swing a baseball bat at her and she wouldn't flinch. And if he could muster the strength to kill her, she wouldn't resist. She was a mess as well; that he knew, and it wasn't from just a lack of sleep. She was killing herself, and he wouldn't allow for her to become a ghost, just like him. He didn't care why he cared so greatly for her, for no one else of his world cares for anything besides their own troubles.

Once she was asleep, he, Beetlejuice, came forth out of her mirror and into her room.

He leaned over her and whispered into her ear.  
_"Lydia Deetz... I'm here now. Everything will be all right."_


	2. Chapter the Second

"Come on, Beej! We'll be late for the movie!" Lydia said, pulling Beetlejuice by his greasy sleeve.

"All right! Lemmego!" Beetlejuice said, snapping out of his memories.

Lydia let go and looked back at him, smiling a snow-white, blissful smile.

It's almost been two years, and look how she's changed, Beetlejuice thought.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lydia always loathed mornings.

She had taped up her windows with duct tape for the exact purpose of stopping such morning light from entering, but flaws were still found with her method. The evil light always found entrances into her hell. However, light wasn't the only horrid thing about the mornings. Mornings pulled her slowly and cruelly away from her dreams.  
Those dreams had so much meaning to her, they were so pure, and could never, ever be shattered.  
Maybe she didn't need to wake up from that dream.  
If anything could stop her father's marriage, it was the single fact that his daughter was never to wake up... just like his wife.  
Lydia decided to wake up that morning knowing exactly what she was going to do. She had stolen her father's shotgun (Lydia never knew why his father had a gun... after all, he wasn't quite that type.).  
She could have done it right in front of her father and he wouldn't have done a thing, but since he was never home anymore, it didn't matter. She always thought that it was a bit too drastic to do this, but compared to living with that red-headed cheerful ass bitch...  
She sat down on the chair in front of her mirror and looked grimly into it for the last time. This was the last time she would look at her pitiful reflection within this world. She loaded the pistol, admiring the beautiful silver bullets. She slowly put the gun up to her mouth as she looked into her reflection. Her finger applied pressure to the trigger and-

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Lydia." A pale man with long, faded, blonde hair was leaning comfortably on the frame of the other side of her mirror- or, rather- IN the mirror.  
Lydia jumped slightly at the appearance of such a grotesque figure. Still shocked, her reflexes made her turn the gun to the mirror and fire. Instead of it shattering, it went straight into another world besides her own. She watched as the bullet seemed to make a wave across her mirror as it passed through it. She heard something shatter.

"Bee'atlejoos!" A rather angry french man yelled at him.  
"Yeah, yeah... I'll clean it up later, bonehead." The ghoulish man yelled back to him, then turned to grin smugly at Lydia.  
Lydia flinched at the grin. "Why shouldn't I?" Her voice was terrible, as well. It was whisper, as if she had a sore throat. On top of that, she could barely hold the gun with her shaky hands.  
"Well, the whole Civil Service thing for the rest of your unlife, I guess." He shrugged. "How old are you, anyway? Ten? Eleven? Whatever it is, you're too young to have that damn gun."  
Lydia flinched again. Her eyes seemed more alive with emotion than what they were only minutes before. She leaned forward and pointed the gun straight at the man's head. "It's my fate."  
"Actually, no it's not. You're trying to take control of your Fate rather than let your true Fate take its course."  
"Shut up." She pulled the trigger.  
Even though the crack of the gun echoed throughout her room, this time she didn't flinch. The bullet hit his head and definitely made a hole right where she wanted it. He looked up at it, his grin not faltering. "Ouch. You got me."  
Lydia just stared at him, waiting for him to fall back or to start bleeding or anything. Something happened, but not what she wanted; bone reappeared where she had left a hole, veins and muscle tissue reconnected, followed by his slightly purple flesh reappearing. Lydia's eyes widened slightly.  
"Aw, c' mon. Am I really that scary?" He said, his grin deepening.

Lydia regained her composure, leaned forward, and poked the mirror where Beetlejuice's shoulder was. When she only felt the glassy surface of the mirror, she leaned back in her chair and took a sigh of relief.  
"Only a figment." Lydia grimly smiled, cocked the gun, and put it back up to her head.

Beetlejuice sighed angrily, and with a flick of his hand sent the gun flying onto her purple bed sheets.

Lydia turned slowly back to the man, shaking more than what he had witnessed so far. "H-how did you do that?"He shrugged. "Babes, that was nothing."  
And with that, he floated through the mirror into Lydia's room, landing on the floor with his hands on his hips.  
Lydia cocked her head to one side. The man copied her motion, cocking his head to one side as well.  
"Who are you?"  
"I believe that you said my name three times last night."  
"...Beetlejuice?"  
He nodded while a huge grin spread across his face once more. "So... whatcha want to do today that's NOT suicide related, Lydia?"

She paused and looked him top from bottom. What was he? Did he just ask her to do something with him? Did he mean her harm? Whatever it was, the worst that could happen was death, and she was already set on that happening.

Perhaps she would give life another chance after all.

"I haven't done anything fun in quite a while..."  
"Then how about you go back to my place? I'm sure you'll have a ball-" He turned into a huge ball. "...crap."

Then he saw something wonderful; Lydia smiling slightly.


	3. Chapter the Third

The words that she said the night before she repeated. Her duct taped windows flew open and a great gust of air came into the room, making anyone whom would be normal to close their eyes. However, Lydia did not. She watched in silent awe as everything started ripping apart and rearranging itself, some things even disappearing. And it on top of it all, the spider-web designed table cloth flew around her and became a beautiful spider web dress. Her hair pulled itself neatly into a ponytail on top of her head in half of a second. Beetlejuice was ahead of her, pulling her along through the nightmarish spirals and designs until they finally arrived at a single door.

He let Lydia step onto the floor before letting go of her and shooting through the door himself and doing a little spin. He stuck his arms out wide as if to embrace his home. "Welcome to the Neitherworld, Lydia!"

Lydia cautiously stepped through the door, already in complete awe at the dress that she was wearing.

"Is this Limbo?" She said, looking over the side of a crazy highway into the oblivion below.

He cringed at the mention of the word. "Limbo is what HUMANS call this place. It's the Neitherworld. Trust me on this one, kid."

Now that Beetlejuice was now towering over Lydia, she began to take a closer look at the man. He was definitely not looking his best, but not his worst either. He looked about in his middle forties, human years, that is. What intrigued her was why he was doing all these kind things for her, but those were questions for later.

"Hey, let's go get you something to eat, you're about as scrawny as Jacques. How about the Freaky Eyes Scream shop?"

ALLDRESSEDUPWITHNOWHERETOGO

Normally, when Lydia went outside for any occasion, the citizens of Peaceful Pines would stare at her, here, however, she fit in normally here. Ghouls and zombies walking normally through the streets... everything she thought. What she didn't guess was that the 'Freaky Ice Cream' shop was actually an Eyes Scream shop.

"Does everything in the Neitherworld have bad puns?"

"They're not all bad." Beetlejuice said, sticking his nose up in the air and floating inside behind Lydia.

"What can I get you two?" A towering monster with tentacles said lazily.

"I'll take some sludge. Whatcha want, babes? My treat."

Lydia looked through the glass at all of the "interesting" flavors of ice cream.

"Is there anything edible for a human?"

"Get the Muck Sundae. It's got" -he mad a gagging noise-"normal chocolate ice cream and all the other stuff."

"Yeah, I'd like that."

The monster looked at her and cringed. "R-really?"

Beetlejuice leaned over the counter to get a closer look at him. "_Really_."

"...one second." The monster said, walking into the back room.

A second later, he came back with a container that had a big sticker on the side that said Hazardous Waste. He scooped out three normal chocolate ice cream balls. "Pay up."

"How can you eat that?" Lydia said, after seeing him down the slimy brown-and-green liquid.

"I'd admit, it's a bit dry," His skin started cracking and eventually fell off.

Lydia smiled. Of course, she had been smiling ever since she stepped into the Neitherworld, but this one was more defined. "So, uh, this being the 'Neitherworld' and all... how did you die?"

"I was hung for being accused of doing witchcraft." He chuckled. "Guess they were right."

"Hung for witchcraft? How old are you?"

"The last time I checked, I was around my six hundred and sixties. Well, six hundred and sixty five to be exact."

"Whoa."

"And that's nothing compared to some of the folks around here." He said, taking another slurp of his sludge. "In fact, if it wasn't for your mom getting me out of the hot seat" -he turned into a bit red chair-"I would've been screwed."

"My mom?" Lydia said, perking up.

"Yeah. She made me a deal; all I had to do was be your guardian and boom, I was off the hook."

"Can you take me to her?" She said, becoming more lively by the second.

Beetlejuice turned back to normal and drooped down in his chair. "...no."

"Wh-why not?"

"It's a long story, okay? Maybe one day you might be able to find her, but for now-"

"I want to go home."

"But you just got here."

"Now, Beetlejuice!"

He drooped down more in his chair. "All right. Say it two more times."

WALKINGWITHADEADMANOVERMYSHOULDER

Beetlejuice walked back to the Roadhouse the slowest he had ever gone before.

"How did eet go, Bee'atlejoos?" Jacques said, sitting at the table with Ginger.

"I blew it. She hates me."

"Whawt hawpened?" Ginger piped up with her thick New Jersey accent.

"I mentioned her mother on accident, and you can see how it went from there." He said, floating by without even looking at them and going straight into his room, his door shutting behind him.

"Now I'm going to have to face the council again and eventually be-" he let out a short cry. "No-no... don't think that. She's got to forgive me. After all, she didn't even give me time to explain..."

I'LLWAITFORANINVITATIONTOARRIVE

Lydia sat down on her bed after being shot back to her world. Her old torn clothes reappeared, her hair down over her face, and was left in the same prison she started out in. Could there have really have a Neitherworld? Let alone, a dead man named Beetlejuice? The gun that flew out of her hands only an hour before was now laying beside her. She looked at it, disgusted by what she saw, and put it in a drawer in her desk.

She was going to go looking for her mother, with the help of Beetlejuice or not. But she needed a few items before she could look.

And with that, her plan was set in motion.

GOINGTOAPARTYBUTNOONE'SSTILLALIVE

The next morning, we find Beetlejuice continuing to pace around his room, getting no sleep last night, muttering excuses for why Lydia was mad at him. He looked down at his alarm clock. It glowed back at him in neon green letters six thirty. Maybe he should go and see if she was awake? And even if she wasn't, he could wait in her room until she woke up.

So, he walked over to his identical mirror to the one in Lydia's room and jumped through it.

He found no one in the room, so he decided to head downstairs, followed by other parts of the room, but only found her parents at it in the bedroom.

"Where could she have gone?" He muttered, heading back up her room and through the mirror.

It took a mere second for him to register what had happened. Her mother.

She was in the Neitherworld.

Alone.

Looking for someone whom she would never find.

He ran out of his Roadhouse and yelled at the top of his lungs,

"_Lyyyyyddddiiaaaaaaaa_!"

Beetlejuice had lost Lydia, and had no idea where she was.

* * *

**DUNDUNDUNNNNNNNN.**

**Lydia took off? Without BJ?! Things must have been weird back then! :O**

**Why will Lydia never find out why she will find her mother?!**

**Find out next week on "As the Neitherworld Turns"!**

**...XD;;**

**Review, perchance? ;)**


	4. Chapter the Fourth

"Would you _shut up_?" Juno said, watching Beetlejuice continue to sulk on her floor.

"J-Juno?" Of course, Beetlejuice didn't know he was there until she spoke. After all, she's got that cool way of transporting people. "June Bug! I knew that you'd help me!"

"No, I am not helping you. I am just going to say the obvious; you have really screwed up now, you stupid little kid. Slipping up on the first day is something, but _losing_ her? Weren't you given explicit orders to keep an eye on her?!"

"B-but I thought that she could use some space! Come on, give me a break!" He split in half.

"If it wasn't for **me** keeping an eye on **you**, you would still be sitting there, crying like an _imbecile_. Did you grow so attached to her already that you thought it was the end of the world?! I myself should throw you to the sandworms to save the Council the pain of doing it themselves!" She said, throwing his parts back together, ignoring his joke.

"Whoa, June Bug! I still have three hours left until the Council comes to judge me. Besides, it was quite a lot worse of a punishment than getting thrown to the sandworms, anyway. If I can find her before then-"

"Then what? She'll still be mad at you."

"How do you know that?"

She sighed. "You're wasting time. Go find her... I'll stall the Council as long as I can."

"Thanks, June Bug." He grinned, winked at Juno, and disappeared, leaving a tin can, a bat, and a beetle in his place.

"I'm not doing it for your benefit, I'm doing it for that damn girl!"

IWASSTRUCKBYLIGHTNINGWALKINGDOWNTHESTREET

"Has anyone seen this woman?"

This was a bit harder than Lydia thought. Her plans of escaping from Beetlejuice went well, her plans of surviving went well, but she knew that she wasn't going to find her mother any time soon.

"Don't you know that we don't look the same after we die?" One skeleton said after she showed her mother's picture to him.

"Where are your parents? You're too young to be out here alone." One beastly woman said, stopping in front of her rather rudely.

"She's with me," One rather tall man said, walking towards her.

This man had a certain edge about him that was far creepier than Beetlejuice, even though the man looked a lot more human than anyone that Lydia had seen in the Neitherworld so far. He had so much of an edge that the woman immediately backed off and even cowered before the man.

"I'm s-sorry. Forgive me." She said before blending back in with the passing crowd of ghouls and monsters bustling in the streets.

"Who are you?" Lydia said, glaring at the man, reaching into her purse.

"Relax, child. I believe that I can help you find your mother. Here, let's sit down somewhere. It's rude of me to introduce myself to you in the street."

"My name is Demetri." The man said after the two sat down at a nearby cafe. "My specialty is taking care of those that are new to this world, so I believed that I could be of some help to you."

"T-thank you?" Lydia said, still rather skeptical of the man's appearance.

"So, tell me a little about yourself; I like to know who I'm helping, after all."

"Well, I'm Lydia Deetz. I, er, died just a few days ago. Starved to death. So, after I came here, I had no real place to stay, so I've been looking for my mom ever since."

He nodded. "And how long has your mother been dead? That usually depends on where they're located. Graveyards and all, that is."

She sighed. "Six years."

"Only six? Why, she'd be at school right now, I believe."

"S-school?"

"If you truly were dead, you would know that." He said, a smirk spreading across his dark face.

Oh fuck.

The room amongst Lydia started to crackle and twitch, as if the wall itself was a projection. And indeed, it was, for the room started to snap and shift until they formed a cage around Lydia.

"Did our good friend Beetlejuice forget to mention that?" Demetri continued to grin as he looked down at her through the bars.

And what was worse was that Beetlejuice's three hours were already up.


	5. Chapter the Fifth

**WHAT? AN UPDATE, YOU SAAAY?! MADNESS!**

**Beej:** NO: THIS. IS.

**Random Dude:** YOUR MOM! OH SNAP!!

**Beej:** ...no.

**Random Dude:** ...mmkay. o.oU (walks off)

**Beej:** As I was saying... THIS. IS. THE BEGINNING!! :D

--

Beetlejuice's striped and rather round bottom bounced a couple times before he came to a complete, painful halt in the very middle of the Council. The usual spotlight was put on him, but this room was still quite a bit different than Judge Mental's, as the Council's room was circular and their for peering down on their pray at every angle.

"Ah, it IS you this time. About time you decided to quit whining and show up." A female with purple hair flipped over one eye said, her voice loud in that leader sort of way. "How is your haunted fairing? Well, I presume?"

"Um, Lydia's good. She seems to be taking it in all very well." Beetlejuice said slowly, choosing his words carefully. Any chance at a pun around these losers and it was all over.

"Really? Well, where is she right now?"

"Err... she's just..." Beetlejuice said, slowly turning around in a circle to look for a more merciful Council member, but failed. "Heeeey, where's that nightmare of an illusion Dimetri?"

"Cleaning up what you decided to fail." A green reptilian sort of thing with a pale blue cloak on sneered. His white-cuffed arms were folded against the table as he leaned forward with the widest grin possible.

Beetlejuice paused, then looked up with the man with bulging eyes. "...Lydia?"

That wide smile of his started to curl as he grinned even wider and nod rather mockingly, but slow enough to drive Beetlejuice up the wall.

And up the wall he went. He had to find her. Obviously, since she wasn't before the court at the moment, who knows what Dimetri was doing?

"Ah, getting angry? Does this girl already have you... under her thumb?" The woman resumed, a smirk tugging at the corner of her unmoving, beautiful face.

Beetlejuice screamed as a giant thumb came down and kept him from running away.

Lydia sat in her little birdcage, swinging on the perch. She'd find a way out of here, and if she didn't, she could still drive this bastard up the wall. After all, she still had her little backpack with her. All she needed to do was get out a metal tone setter and hit one of his bones and he was sure to shake all over, and that would be her chance to escape. However, that little confidence that she had in herself disappeared when Dimetri's shadow came back into view, for he seemed to have gained a four hundred percent creepiness about him... at least to poor Lydia.

Only half of his face was visible, and the other half was in the shadows. His skeleton face seemed to have gained bits and pieces of flesh, but the pieces seemed to stop around his mouth, giving him what seemed to be a permanent smile. His voice wasn't at all joyful, however.

"Ah, poor little Lyds..." He sang, almost mocking her inside of that prison. "Will no one come to save you?"

She tried to smirk her cracked lips at him. "I don't need help, Dimmy. I can leave whenever I see fit."

It was his turn to smirk, and although his bony features already held one, you could tell that this was not faked, and caught her bluff easily. "Try it. I bet Beetlejuice is so saddened that you didn't want to stay with him that he won't come for you."

She glared at him, making her fading hair fall down in her eyes again. It gave her such a disturbance that anyone -well, alive, that is- would back away immediately. "Though I know I should be wary, still I venture some place scary! Ghostly hauntings I turn loose! Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice." She paused to give him what she thought was a final smirk. "Beetlejuice."

...nothing. Nothing happened, and when it didn't, seconds passed by in small lurches as the only thing that Lydia had hope in once again failed her. She wanted to reach for her backpack, but she was scared that any sudden move would make him realize something or another.

"Aww. What did I tell you? You failed him, and now you're going to regret it. But this wouldn't be the first time you failed another, is it not?"

Lydia, this time, looked down. "Shut up."

"It is all your fault that your mother died, am I right? If only you would have been there for her in her one hour of need... she would always be there for you, but this one time that she needed-"

"Shut UP." She made an untraceable movement in her cage and was now reaching for any part of his body that she could grab through the bars of the cage. Sadly, he wasn't in reaching distance of those scrawny little arms.

"You are amongst the dead now, child. Our kind don't care about the living or their sad little lives. When we can find anything event the slightest bit alive, we kill it, since they're always whining about how bad their lives are."

Lydia reached for her backpack in another untraceable motion.

Beetlejuice screamed harder as the giant hand began to lift him into the air to be fed directly to the sandworms... and that was only the beginning. Of course, he would be mauled in the acid of them for a couple of days, or maybe even weeks, then he would go on to be... he couldn't even think about what was to come if he failed. She was screaming his name inside of his head, but he couldn't do anything about it...! He needed to help her, damn it! Why couldn't he help out for once in his life?! Now he would not only fail the mother, but that girl, she'd die, and fail her as well. A middle-aged dead guy, such as himself, maybe, but a girl barely in her double digits? No way. Then he stopped screaming to think.

She was screaming his name... now he just needed to do was scream hers.

"LYDIA LYDIA LYDIA!"

With that, he disappeared.

--

**Sorry that I've been gone for such a long period of time. Seriously. Ever heard of writer's block? Yeah. Now imagine me crammed between two of them. OH SNAP IT'S A PUN.**

**Then I had a surge of Juice injected into my veins and I'm up again! HAHAHA.**

**(I'm such a dork... forgive me. XD)**

**I'd also like to point out to all of those Beetlefreaks out there... where is the lady in the purple hair from?! WHAT EPISODE?!  
I think that the lizard wierdo is a pretty easy one. **

**I've held up my part of the deal, Wanda, now lemme see that horizon. ;)**


End file.
